In Amazon and Walmart’s ongoing retail rivalry, the big box giant maintains a commanding lead in the grocery category. Yet the hypermarket chain is seeing declines across key categories. As Walmart’s market share erodes in many areas, its dominance in grocery remains a crucial pillar of its strategy.
Following PYMNTS Intelligence’s recent release “Walmart’s Aggressive eCommerce Strategy Aimed at Amazon’s Best Customers,” this installment digs deeper. Using the two companies’ financial results from Q1 2019 through Q2 2024 in conjunction with national data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the report breaks down each firm’s retail market share category by category. Read on to see how Walmart’s grocery stronghold contrasts with Amazon’s gains in other sectors, highlighting shifts in consumer preferences.
Walmart’s Share of Grocery Spend Exceeds Amazon’s 7 to 1
Walmart’s grocery business continues to top Amazon’s several times over. In Q2, the superstore company captured a 20.2% share of consumer spend in the food and beverage category. Amazon, meanwhile, captured 2.7%. Moreover, Walmart has grown its share slightly in recent years. It increased from 19.8% one year prior and 18.4% five years earlier in 2019.
Amazon’s food and beverage business has grown since 2019. Yet it has remained roughly stagnant in the last year. In Q2 2024, Amazon captured a 50% greater share of spend in the category than in 2019. However, its share of captured spending held roughly flat compared to the 2.6% share the company captured in Q2 2023.
Walmart’s lead is not as pronounced in other categories of consumables or day-to-day necessities. When it comes to health and personal care spend, Walmart is the frontrunner. However, Amazon has gained ground in recent years, even exceeding Walmart’s in these categories on a couple of occasions.
In Q2 2024, Walmart held a 6.8% share of consumers’ health and personal care spend. This was unchanged year over year but up 11% from 2019. Amazon, meanwhile, captured 5.8% of the category in the second quarter, up moderately from 5.4% the year before. Plus, that figure represents nearly three times the 2.2% share the company held in Q2 2019.
In fact, in the past two years, Amazon has exceeded Walmart’s share in the category twice. It did so once in Q4 2022 and once in Q4 2023.
Overall, while Walmart continues to dominate the grocery category, Amazon is clearly making strides in the food and beverage space and notable gains in the health and personal care categories.
In Other Categories, Amazon Chips Away at Walmart
In all other retail categories included in the study (home furnishings; electronics and appliances; auto parts; clothing items; and sporting goods, hobby items, music, and books), Amazon has seen the share of consumer spend it captures rise year to year since 2019, while Walmart’s has declined.
Consider, for instance, the first of those categories. In Q2 2024, Amazon captured a 16% share of consumer spend in furniture and home furnishings. This figure may be only a slight rise from the 15% share the company held in Q2 2023. But it is nearly twice the 8.2% share the eCommerce giant captured five years earlier.
Walmart, meanwhile, has been losing ground in the category in recent years. Consumers may be turning to Amazon to meet their furniture needs, whereas once, they might have purchased in person from the superstore chain. Walmart’s 7.1% share in the category in Q2 2024 was a marginal increase from the 7.0% it held a year earlier. However, it represented a pronounced decline over a five-year period. Compared to Q2 2019, the share of furniture spend was down 26% from the 9.7% share it had captured.
In overall consumer retail spend, Amazon’s 8.3% share in Q2 2024 was notably higher than the 7.7% it held in 2023. (Keep in mind that fractional percentage differences are significant when scaled up to reflect all consumer retail spend.) Walmart’s 7.5% share was also up, but less, rising from 7.3% in Q2 2023.
While Walmart remains a formidable competitor, its declining market share in these sectors indicates consumers shifting toward Amazon’s convenience. Amazon’s larger gains ultimately overshadow the minute increases in Walmart’s share in certain categories over the last year.
Amazon Is Becoming an Electronics Powerhouse
The electronics category is a key battleground. These high-value items can account for a large share of total retail sales. In fact, the data indicates that electronics and appliances accounted for 25% of Amazon’s retail sales in Q2. That said, these products only made up 4% of Walmart’s retail sales.
As these figures suggest, Amazon has a huge lead over Walmart in this category. In Q2, the former captured a 37.1% share, while the latter held only 5.9%. Moreover, the eCommerce giant’s slice of the pie continues to grow, while the superstore chain’s shrinks.
Since Q2 2019, Amazon’s share of consumer spend on electronics and appliances has surged by 78%. In the same period, Walmart has seen its share in the category decrease by 28%. This drop-off suggests that consumers may no longer be turning to traditional retailers for electronics. Instead, they may be seeking out the convenience of making such purchases online.
Online shopping may offer additional information and digital perks consumers seek in these high-cost, high-consideration purchases. PYMNTS Intelligence’s research finds that shopping using digital tools — known as Click-and-Mortar™ shopping — contributes positively to consumers’ satisfaction with their retail experiences. Shoppers appreciate features such as product details, rewards, promo codes and real-time digital inventory updates. Consequently, Walmart’s recent eCommerce growth could help the retailer better compete for consumers’ electronics spend going forward.
While Walmart’s eCommerce growth shows potential for future gains, it faces significant challenges in catching up to Amazon’s lead. As it stands, Amazon’s share in the electronics and appliances category exceeds Walmart’s by more than six to one. If it wants to close the gap, Walmart has a long way to go.
For a broader look at the two companies battle for consumer spend, see the first installment of this two-part series. Plus, for the latest news about this battle, dig into PYMNTS’ ongoing coverage of the eCommerce giant and big box titan.
